


Repetition

by Chokopoppo



Series: Reincarnation Cycle [3]
Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: About as much sad as Reincarnation Cycle normally has, BARTIMAEUS LOVES EVERYONE: THE FIC, Discussions of death, F/M, Gen, Internal Conflict, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 07:12:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5859190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mostly, it is Ptolemy. Often, it is Kitty. Sometimes, it is Nathaniel. Always, it is painful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repetition

Ptolemy leaves to go to the lab early in the morning, and Bartimaeus stays home and grades essays. He likes grading essays, he’s discovered - sometimes he finds interesting trains of thought, learns new information even _he_ wasn’t privy to, back in the day. 

The apartment is quiet for nearly the entire day. He drinks three mugs of tea and one of coffee, starts and gives up on four cigarettes, shoos over-affectionate birds away from the window, puts on another pot of coffee when he gets a text from Ptolemy. _omw_ , it says, _v tired, see you in 30._

Bartimaeus makes an effort to clean up the apartment for Ptolemy’s arrival, which mostly consists of moving the mess around to non-essential counters and then complimenting himself a lot on a job well done. Searches through the fridge for anything that might be good as food. He’s discovered, recently, that while human, food isn’t as repellent as it was to him as a spirit. There’s still nothing about it that he particularly enjoys, but look, you can’t have everything.

And suddenly, the universe snaps out of existence.

~~

When it snaps back, Bartimaeus is shaking and gasping, hands clasping something in front of him, reeling to recover from the feeling of every molecule of his body dissipating and then reconstructing. His breath forces its way in and out of his lungs in short, pressed gasps. His eyes, watering, focus slowly on the thing in his hands.

It’s a class roster. Right at the top, _Alexandria, Ptolemaeus,_ and two sets of memories slam together in the center of his brain. The first: _he’s dead, he’s dead and I was just fucking around at home and I couldn’t protect him and he’s dead_ again _how could I let this_ happen _._ The universe only resets when one of the two of them dies - Bartimaeus was safe at home. Ptolemy was on his way back. But something happened and Bartimaeus failed him _again_ , wasn’t there for him _again_ , and now they’re back at the beginning.

“Bart? You okay?”

Bartimaeus looks up, startled, to see a woman with round glasses and a huge, loose sweatshirt leaning against the doorway of his office. That’s the second set of memories - he knows her perfectly well. He’s known her for almost twenty years. She’s his best friend - her office is right across the hall from his in the history department - they come as a set of lecture halls that students have to take together. He’s worked at this university for three decades - he knows every inch of his office by heart. “Yeah, I’m - I’m okay, Queezle,” he says quickly, swallows the lie as fast as he can get it out, “I was watching one of those videos with, like - a baby and a dog?”

“Oh, shit, send me that,” she says, grinning - then lets it drop. “Hey, look, um - Methys and I were gonna go out to dinner as like a - a last-night-before-the-semester-starts celebration thing. She says she might be able to get Penrenutet and some other people from the department together. If you wanna come, I’ve got some room in my car. We’d all be happy to have you there.”

His head is still spinning, but Bartimaeus is recovering fast. He pushes his glasses up off his eyes and sets them on the crest of his head, grins lopsidedly. “That is entirely dependent upon the _quality_ of the restaurant,” he says, “and, of course, the _cost_ of a celebratory dinner.”

“Psh, you know a bunch of _professors_ aren’t going anywhere _nice_ ,” she replies, and laughs. “Probably just down to Rosewater. Affa hasn’t stopped talking about it since she found out they had Lagavulin.” There’s a pause, hanging over the sound of the rotating fan in the corner - then, Queezle adds, “you know, if something _was_ wrong, and you _did_ need to talk about it - you know I’m always willing to listen, right?”

Bartimaeus blinks at her for a moment, and then she smiles at him. “Anyway, I’m gonna go put water on for tea,” she says, “if you want some, you should swing by the kitchen soonish, before it gets cold.” She moves fluidly out of the doorway and down the hallway it opens onto.

“Don’t slouch when you walk,” Bartimaeus calls after her, then slumps in his own chair. He considers the class roster in his hands again. _Alexandria, Ptolemaeus_. Was Queezle his coworker in his past life, or just in the past of _this_ life? Even now, he can’t be sure he really didn’t live the life behind him. The memories are so lucid, so _real_ \- this is how the universe muddles his perspective. He doesn’t know up from down, this life from the last. Is he being thrown back to the beginning of the same life, forced to play the same loop of time over and over again varying only at his hands, or is he living through a myriad of parallel universes, each one almost exactly the same as the last one? Did the past timeline cease to exist, or was he simply moved? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know _anything_.

Well, that’s not entirely true. He knows there’s a pack of cigarettes in one pocket and a lighter in the other. He knows he hasn’t watered the desk plant that he uses as a paperweight in forty-eight hours. He knows he has a lecture hall to teach for the first time this time tomorrow. He knows the names of the students in his class.

He knows he has to see him again.

~~

It works for a while. Not long - not half as long as it normally lasts. Normally, Bartimaeus can expect a good eight years with Ptolemy at a time, but some jackass who’s out an auto decides Barti’s motorcycle looks nice and lends a sense of complacency in the loss of human life. Bartimaeus doesn’t mind - doesn’t even fight back. If he dies, it means that Ptolemy doesn’t. He would die a thousand times if it meant Ptolemy never had to die again.

This time he finds himself out of breath and shaking, soaked to the bone from the rain, running fingers through damp hair as the bartender gives him an appraising look. “Bad trip, huh?” She says, almost sympathetic, and Bartimaeus looks her in the eye and feels the Other Place reeling through her all at once. Kitty Jones is tall, broad-shouldered, with full tattoo sleeves and hair buzzed tight to her skull. On Kitty, Bartimaeus doesn’t mind change. She was never a solid shape, physically - he recognizes her through the color of her soul.

“Water,” he says, and covers his face with his hands, “please, I need water.”

His name is Bartimaeus Necho, he lives in an apartment with Faquarl Urov, he writes trashy penny-dreadful novellas for a living. He was a history major at college until he dropped out. Other than his shitty roommate, no one knows who he is or where he lives. He’s been a hermit his entire adult life. He knows all of this with _absolute certainty_.

Kitty gives him a glass of water, and he looks at her like his savior. She is. She will reach down to the depths he has sunk to and grab him by his collar and pull him up, kicking and screaming and screaming and screaming, because she is _better than he is_ and she is better than anyone ever will be. It’s fading now but he can feel her soul on fire, shrieking out in the last wailing moments. He has done this before. He will do it again.

He knocks the entire glass of water back at once, and then, clearly dissatisfied with the nonplussed reaction this produces from the woman behind the counter, squeezes it too hard accidentally and shatters the glass. There’s fear on her face for less than a second before the contempt seeps through. “What,” she says, flatly, “the hell.”

Bartimaeus shrugs and gives her a grin. “Cocaine’s a hell of a drug.”

“I have to call a fucking ambulance now,” she replies, obviously less amused than he is by the current turn of events, “so just sit quietly and don’t let that get on my counter.”

“Don’t call an ambulance. I don’t like hospitals.” They always find something odd, like a bone in his body that’s five thousand years old or necessary organs that don’t work but which keep him alive anyway. Hospitals and doctors are nothing but trouble.

“You can’t be in here, bleeding all over my goddamn restaurant,” Kitty says, fierce through exhaustion, “so either get your ass back on the street or just _sit tight_ while I get you _professional medical help_.”

Bartimaeus looks at her, then looks at the window out onto the street. Stands up off of his stool. “Goodbye, Kathleen,” he says quietly, turns his back on her, and walks out. He can feel her eyes on him the whole way, even as one of her coworkers whispers ‘Clara, who was that guy?’ to her. She’s stunned for right now, but she won’t be for long.

The good thing about Kitty is that she comes to find _him_.

~~

Ptolemy is tender. Kitty is passionate. Nathaniel is a wet sock.

“Quit whining, the cold isn’t _that_ bad,” Bartimaeus calls cheerfully from his place in the heated car. From outside, scraping the windshield, Nathaniel makes “kill” motions with his hands.

“I was shivering so hard this morning that I dislocated my _knee_ , prick,” he yells back, and furiously brushes at the snow.

“Oh, whinge, whinge, whinge,” Bartimaeus says, and shrugs. He doesn’t really care if they get to where they’re going on time or not - he has more money than he knows what to do with. Nathaniel, in a cruel (to Nathaniel) or hilarious (to Bartimaeus) twist of fate, works hand and knee as Bartimaeus’ personal manservant. A gentleman’s personal gentleman. When he first pieced it together, Bartimaeus started laughing and couldn’t stop for nearly half an hour.

“Shouldn’t you get someone _else_ to do this? Someone for whom this is…within their _professional standing_ , I mean.” Even in the servant class, Nathaniel has the cheek to be nasty about his inferiors, and wrinkles his nose at his snow-brush. “This job is rather _beneath_ me, don’t you think?”

Bartimaeus remembers his delicate upbringing, his careful lessons on respecting the help and everything they do to make his life run smoothly. And he also remembers pain, old pain, so far back it barely scrapes his memory and yet it’s still _there_ , a threat of an eternity confined in a tiny silver pot in the deep mud of the Thames. He remembers years of agony, physical, mental, spiritual, forced to run and run until there was nothing left of himself and his body literally fell apart around him. Torture. A house on fire. Violent threats. Fear. Pain. Humiliation.

“I think there’s rather a lot of snow left on the other side of the windshield, old chap,” he says, and grins.

~~

The universe has only shifted to do so twice before, but Bartimaeus finds himself shaking and stammering at an interview, with a puzzled, irritated candidate sitting in front of him.

“Um, I can tell you my qualifications,” Asmira says, and Bartimaeus breathes deep and fakes a smile. She is not beautiful, but she does not have to be.

“Sure. I’d like to hear them.” He clears his throat and goes for a glass of water while she tells him.

From the paper in front of him, he can see that she’s looking for an internship - her resume has a lot of suspicious gaps, a lot of poorly filled information. He knows, instinctively, that she is covering for a history in the Sheba mafia. He knows, from her paper, that she is married. He knows, from past experience, that she is looking for this position so that she can kill him.

He gives her the job.

~~

It’s his first time with her in front of him, and he’s startled - but the universe, at least, gives him as much oxygen in his lungs as is normal, rather than drowning him in his own body, when he turns to look at her.

“Hi, you must be Professor Necho,” she says, grinning. Her hair is dyed green and curling tightly to her head. She extends a pale hand towards him. “I’m the new professor in the department - everyone’s said so much about you - oh, I’m - “ 

“Queezle,” he says quickly, taking her hand, “Queezle, um, Mon…Mongol…”

“Magnolia,” she says brightly, “like the flower.”

“Right, right,” he says, and smiles like he can feel sweet summer rain on his back, “well, I’m looking forward to having you next door, Queezle.”

She grins, giddy and nervous, and he realizes this is her first job - her first real job, anyway, her first job at a university - and he will be her first friend here. The staff, now, is mostly old and primarily rude, desensitized to new blood and waiting to watch her fail. But she will be kind to him, look to him for guidance.

Magnolia. The universe must think itself very clever. Spirits, and old humans, have last names created off of their birthplace. Ptolemaeus Alexandri - Faquarl Urov - Queezle Magnolia. Off of Mongolia, surely. The universe’s clever little trick of reminding him what happened the first time he met them - first time he tried to protect them.

What had happened to Queezle? He wonders, vaguely, what his relationship with her had been in the Initiate Life, as she happily flounces towards the door. He remembers being protective of her - not wanting her to be hurt - knowing she’d been hurt, anyway, and knowing there was nothing he could do about it. Screaming over the rooftops - no speed in his feet could have saved her, but that didn’t matter because she had died alone, after he’d told her he would protect her.

Back then, they were afraid to say the word ‘love’ - but she had been young. Maybe she had said it, anyway.

~~

He can feel Ptolemy’s eyes on the back of his neck whenever he turns away - the boy is observing him, like a field agent in the wild. It’s starting to make him nervous. He clicks the green pen in his hand a few times, then tips his glasses down his nose and stares Ptolemy down. “Okay,” he says, sighs exasperatedly, “ _what_.”

Ptolemy blinks, grins. “You’ve got a feather stuck in your hair,” he says, voice tinted with laughter, “have you been making friends with birds again?”

“Ugh, don’t _remind_ me,” Bartimaeus sighs, throws his hands in the air. “Nathaniel’s bought a bunch of parakeets, and they are _so loud_. He has _no_ idea how to handle them. I was _trying_ to show him how to hold them.”

Ptolemy laughs, and Bartimaeus feels a warm bloom in his chest. “Oh, Kitty’s been texting me nonstop,” Ptolemy says. “She wants some tips on how to, and I quote, ‘deal with him’. She also wants to know if you’re coming by tonight - we were going to watch that new show on Netflix.”

“I can’t - Q and I are having a celebratory ‘finished-with-grading’ round at Rosewater. I guess we could swing by after.”

Ptolemy’s eyes narrow. “Don’t you actually have to be _done_ with grading to celebrate being done with grading?”

“I am _working on it,_ okay?”

Ptolemy laughs, and after a moment, Bartimaeus laughs, too, and he feels himself overwhelmed with gratitude and joy, sprouting and growing inside of him. No matter how painful the cycle is, he is still allowed to be _here_ , with _him_ , with everyone, and he can see him smile and laugh again and again. He wraps his arms around Ptolemy’s waist, not with the absentmindedness that he lives almost every other second of his life in but with the purpose that makes life bearable.

“Whaaat are you doing,” Ptolemy says, but it isn’t a question - his mouth is still struggling around laughter, and his eyes are shining dark, skinny arms slinging up around Bartimaeus’ shoulders affectionately.

_’Every time I see you laugh I remember how much I love you,’_ Bartimaeus does not say, _’and I cannot imagine living in a world that you don’t live in, and I miss you even when you’re right here but more than that I love you, more than you can possibly imagine, I have loved you for eight thousand lives and I will love you for ten thousand more, and all I can hope for is that you will never go away.’_

What he does say instead is “what’s this weird spot on your nose? I’m going to scrub this off like I’m your mother if you don’t clean your face.”

“I love you too, jerk,” Ptolemy says, and laughs again, and lets Bartimaeus kiss him.


End file.
